Adventures ( under construction at all times )

Operating QRP on summer holidays is always a challenge. You never know what will be against you, and what will support your desperate effort to make a single  contact. Until 1995 all my radio excursions had a typical VHF nature. My wife and I were carrying antennas, rigs, cables, food, etc. to the highest possible hill, and then during a contest period we have tried to work as many as possible stations, looking for ODX exceeding 1000 km. After some trips we gave up as we lost interest doing so.

Preparing for  summer holidays in 1995 I have planned to operate QRP in a serious way. However I made only 1 contact with German station  using "Wim - 20C" and dipole the "addict process" has began.

Few years later in 1999  I took  NCG-21 MHz to try if QRP really works from the camp. I hung  half wave dipole  and with power of 10W (not necessary QRP)  I made my first good HF contacts from the field. Results were so fine, that I have promised  myself not to quit and the year after I had the same rig, but precisely cut delta loop and Inverted Vee antennas. This filled my log with more than 150 QSOs including WAE and ALL ASIA contests participation.

I learned following lesson:

" The power is not so much important than your antenna system. More time you spend with antennas and ATU development - more satisfacion guaranteed "

Y2K was the one when I made two summer trips with two different QRP rigs to the same locations near Lithuanian border.  First setup in July consisted of HR2510  and half-wave vertical tuned on 28 MHz.   I made more than 100 contacts during 2 weeks, but propagation was very poor.

Second trip was organised on September 2000. "Wim 80SC" was chosen for 80M SSB adventure.  I hardly tried to work  stations with 0,5 watt and "commercial Windom", but only 16 contacts were made. Lesson learned ?   See sentence in the top of this page.

"Wim - 80SC" performed much better from my home shack  with good tuned Inverted Vee.

4th of May 2001

As we had a long weekend in Poland I decided to try following setup on the field: Forty Oner, Mini ATU, half-wave wire and myself.

From left to right you can see:Ham Keyer supporting Mini ATU and Forty Oner, power supply and speaker on top and  key paddle.

You may find the beginning of the half-wave wire right behind the tulip

The halfwave wire is visible between my Mom's summer shack and the patio. Direction was to the NNW.

I must say that I used proper grounding and Mini ATU glowed as good as at home.

This is obviously me, still in hope that this setup will work. Unfortunately I made a half of the contact at 12:42Z with SM7AVM. He received my call properly as I was SP5DDJ/5 and gave me 559 report from Jonkoping. Then QSB made this contact unfinished. Later on I called many stations, most from Germany, but the only one (DJ3MJ) probably copied me  but he couldn't pick up a callsign. I gave up at 17:10Z when UT1DI received me as a DJ5DHJ.....

I LEARNED ANOTHER LESSON:

Wire antenna must be raised as high as possible, not 3,5 meters above the ground.

I'll try full wavelength and two wavelength wires crossed on my next trip.

Band conditions may help, but this requires to stay overnight.

September  2001

Since 1999 I have been spending my holidays on the lakes north-east from Warsaw and about 15 miles from Lithuanian border. Conditions there are very good for fishing, bike trips and doing nothing. This summer I planned not to bring any of my homebrew rigs but borrow an IC-707 to be active on 80m SSB from very rare county. The rest of the bands were operated mostly CW and power not exceeding 10W input. I hung 85m long-wire hoping that on the other bands I'd have some gain. Wrong !! All I got was terrible QRM in this non industrial area. That was because of specific kind of minerals with some uranium which produced instant S-9 noise up to 10 MHz.

    This is my September's setup.

Small antenna tuner visible between PC and rig was        quickly assembled just before the trip. Inside the tuner I put similar components that in mini ATU, but ready to handle up to 100W.

This is experimental antenna called  "bird's cage". I made it from wire, sticks and PVC line. Results were very good in the range from 10 MHz up to 28 MHz, but TVI was terrible when power was set on more than 10W. Each one of four wires measures approx. 3,5 m. All wires are twisted on top and bottom, and the feed point is on the bottom - single wire because I didn't have spare coax.

Base of the antenna is just a patio  table.

The longest QRP contact was made with JA5PL on 21 MHz.

First trip with K-1 on May 2002

First field operation setup on 18th of May 2002.. From left to righ: power supply with speaker on top, homebrew trx "Wim 80 SC" with mini ATU on top, K - 1 and homebrewed paddle. Thick yellow wire is a random wire antenna and thin yellow wire is a counterpoise.

   First portable QSO  with K-1

    I worked LZ2EV on 30 meters.

Second trip with K-1 on August 2002

This summer was perfect for QRP trips. I've spent 2 weeks at my Mother's  place and  had a lot of time for experimenting with simple wire antennas. Inverted Vee was perfect antenna for 80 meters and I made a lot of contacts both CW and SSB after 19Z. Most of the Hams I worked were amazed how loud I was with 3 Watts only. But the main goal was to develop simple wire antenna to serve my fourbander K-1. After number of wire cuts I noticed that 10,5m wire with good earth works the best. I tried also the shortest possible wire of 5m with worse but satisfactory results. Then I recalled the first wire antenna I made in 1967. That was 21 meter Windom with wire feeder precisely connected to 1/3 of the 21,5m lenght. This "old fashioned" antenna was hung approximately 5 meters above the ground and feeder 7 meters long was most of the way perpendicular to the antenna.  R-7000 raised 3m above the ground presented good SWR and very poor efficiency, so that was the first and the last trial of verticals on the field. Using Windom  and K-1 I called GM3UWX on 20th of August at 15:02 Z with power reduced down to 100 mW. Jim from near Glasgow had to have very good antenna  and/or ears. He responded to my call and gave me 569 !!.

Later on I tried various configurations of wire antennas and power between 100 mW and 2W with very good results. I made a note, that next QRPp will be developed for 30 M band and power will not exceed 200-300 mW.

Table below ilustrates   low power experiments vs. antenna.

             SP5DDJ/5's Radio shack                                                  Setup: ps-1 /speaker, Wim 80SC/ATU-1, mini ATU ATU                                                                                                  K-1, SWR/PWR meter, ps-2, Ham Keyer, two paddles

  Painting mast of R-7000                                                                           But the winner was wire fed Windom 21,5 m

Third trip with K-1 on September 2002

That was very leisure trip. I used all knowledge earned on August, and prepared Windom 21m as a main antenna after some modification. I checked theory, added 1:4 balun and  changed wire feeder for 50 ohm coax. Inverted Vee for 80m was obviously second antenna, and 10,5 m longwire was hung almost vertically.

I made 50  QRP contacts only, but the WX was very good for fishing. Three pikes and a lot of tasty perches was another score of  this QRP trip. I worked some real QRP stations like: HB9OU, DL3NAA, DL3FBD, G4PPG, SP6AEG and G3XJS. Most distant QSO I made with DU3NXE on 15M the day before returning home.

          SP5DDJ/4

   35 km from YL border

Season of the year 2003

This year I had an opportunity to operate three times from the remote locations.

Adamow - our family's first  land property

Early spring  I have   opened the QRP/p season working from Adamow our small piece of land near Warszawa. The house is beautiful, but antenna conditions rather poor. Many as high as 30m trees located less than a halfwave apart gives a chance to play with random wires only. So the 10 meter longwire with ATU  had to be enough aerial this year. Multiband delta loop is being considered for the next year.

First QSO from Adamow is done ( using K-1)                                                      Setup made in June for couple of lazy days

I have worked 92 years old   German Ham  on 40m CW                                        L->R "Antek-80", PWR meter, K-1, paddle

Ruda 2003 - summer holidays

I like places which brings good memories. Therefore packed my three bag setup and drove to Ruda again this summer. My Mother was happy so did I. I made another experiments with easy mountable vertical antenna like Diamond CP-6 and used well proven Inverted Vee, Windom and 40m long wire. Most of the time I had a nice chats testing "Antek 80m" and "Antek 20m" home built transceivers . I also didn't let my lovely K-1 to be covered with dust. The "old QRP gun" - Kenwood TS-120V was tried after some clean-up ant retuning. About 200 QSO were made from 80m to 10m. The WX was very fine, and I enjoyed a great  plum harvest. Lesson learned ?  No more commercial verticals on HF..... Below you have a little photo story:

The same shack with new rigs and older operator ;-))

Top - "Antek-80", TS-120V, K-1, pwr supply                                                                                Glossy but not efficient

Below - MFJ Versa Tuner, Ham Keyer, paddles

Tasty plums - you can eat them all day long

                                                                                                                                          Redcurrant - best for fruitpaste

   It's nice to grill sausages .......

    when the QSO is done

    I love QRP, but I also love to eat.....

What really means much to me in Ham Radio is a friendship which appears suddenly and stays for a long time. I don't like contacts limited to report exchange, except DX-peditions. Every single contact logged should be a nice event to remember. This has happened in Februrary, when Piotr SP9LVZ appeared in my E-mail inbox, introducing himself as a QRP fan and skilled constructor of ham rigs. We started every day discussions and finally we met during my stay in Ruda.   I drove 200km to meet the person I knew from the net. That was very warm welcome at his place. What we did was showing our home made rigs, test them and exchange a lot of opinions. Afterwards Piotr made me a nice tour around countryside. Today we are going to release very limited edition of QRP transceiver kit on "non profit" bases. Just for fun. There is a lot of very exiting work to do. We made an assumption, that anyone interested could build one week-end project and make a CW contact on the band he had chosen. Kit will be available early summer 2004. See "..New rig is coming" subpage for details.

Here we are sitting by the table loaded with 4 (four) "Antek transceiver projects".

Piotr SP9LVZ was a great host.

I am tuning BFO on the proper slope of the filter in "Antek-40m" version

Kukle 2003 - near Lithuanian border

Every September I spend a nice time somewhere in North-East part of Poland on the lakes. I get my QRP rig with me, but the goal is to catch a nice fish and collect tasty mushrooms. This year no fishes were caught due to huge amount of various mushrooms which my wife Mirka uses for different foods.

The new rig appeared in my backpacker setup. I bought FT-817 secondhand with TCXO and CW filter. I took a notebook with me and this enabled me to make first contacts PSK-31 using QRP power. This was done rather easy, confirming again the power of QRP !. I have tested FT-817 from 80 to 70cm, and the rig is worth the money I spent. Many positive opinions I read on Eham net before buying. I do recommend such a routine for everyone. View some pictures below, not necessary related to Ham Radio.

Huge table, many windows.

Perfect working conditions

    Nice setup L-> R :

    power supply

    "Antek-80"

    MFJ - portable ATU

    Yaesu FT-817

    Paddle

    Aerials :

    80m dipole

    Windom 21,5m

    Maldol HMC-6S car vertical

    attached to the roof using

    magnet mount

    That was a reason to come for -                

            " Edible Boletus "

        " prawdziwek " in Polish

    I have been collecting about  70 pieces a day, then cut, dried  them  and stored in a big jar.

Adamow 2004 - our dreamhouse

By the end of 2003 Mirka SP5NHF and I decided to make our dream come true and we bought a nice cottage about 40 km from our QTH Warszawa. The house is 3 bedroom, living room with fireplace and small kitchen&shower. A piece of land lies in the middle of the pine trees which makes great opprotunity to hang wire antennas. Such a spot is dreamland for us when family needs peace&quiet, fresh air and NO CITY QRM. All the year 2004 we made renovation ( the house was built by the previous owner) which consumed most of the contence of home piggybank. Finally new roof and windows were installed so the radioshack. So far simple antennas like 41m long wire ( with 4 counterpoises), Inverted Vee and coil extended verticals are the system. As trees are not obstacles for HF, number of quite good DX I could work since then. Most of the time SP5NHF spends in her innovative garden, and I help her with the man's work and BBQ. What nice silence all around, just various songs of unknown (so far) countless number of birds, from dusk to dawn.

  Right after first QSO ever in Adamow.

  Rig was a reliable K-1 and dipole ( CW of course)

aa

   Top window is our radioshack area

   Mirka is on the way to the garden

  My radio corner includes at the moment (L-R) Kenwood AT-200 antenna tuner, antique QRP transceiver Yaesu FT-707S and 1:9 balun ( behind lamp). Picture was taken on late spring of 2005.

Summer 2005

RUDA again

As in the previous years summer 2005 was another stay at my Mother's cottage. The field is almost ideal for wire antennas experiments. Trees are higher every year which doesn't help to hang wires but allows experiments with simple loop antennas. Not so many pictures I made because my new digital camera enables creating short (up to 20minutes) good quality movies. Due to space limit on QSL.NET server I am not able to show you how difficult the Delta Loop can be in differnt configurations. But main task was to continue optimising a long wire antennas. Before that I had to check what is the reason that  horizontal delta loop for 80m band is so popular among SP Hams. Last year the winner on wire contest antennas was 41 meter long wire with four free lying radials of 20 meters each. Nor Inverted Vee or half wave dipole coud compete with such a installations. Even better results I got in Adamow, feeding long wire through the 1:9 magnet balun and four 20 meter counterpoises again. My unconditional love to CW was tested by jealous SSB ragchewing, mainly because of my latest Taurus project. That's why I did't play with CW as much as I used to every summer. Right after arrival on 30th of July I started to prepare my first delta loop for 80m. This is rather a challenge if you are looking for good and highest possible three supporting trees. Finally I made a choice but couldn't in any way throw over the selected peaks of the pine trees. Simply all trees are much higher and I am little older. I had to find another technique of throwing. Right these days I saw track and field games in Helsinki and hammer throw inspired me how could I get those tree peaks. After short warm-up I made it, and eventually delta loop was connected to the rig. To obtain approximately good impedance matching I fed the loop about 7 meters from the nearest corner of the triangle. Antenna tuner said "yes I can do it with no problem" and the log started to be filled with good  QRP reports. After a few days I decdided to make a first comparison between a loop and the winner of 2004 - 41m long wire. This took all afternoon to be ready with two non conflicting antennas and finally by the evening, when the QRP conditions are good  I made several QSOs and...guess what? Delta Loop was worse by 1S in most of the cases. A bit disappointed I hung Inverted Vee to perform triple test. The same results. The worst was Inv.Vee then delta loop and the best was long wire ( with radials). So for what do I need more than 80 meters of good stranded wire ? I made more radials then in Adamow QTH...hi. But the best surprise came along a couple days later. During a nice morning contact with retired electronic engineer ( one of many QRP enthusiasts) I refreshed my knowledge of wire antennas ( e.g. resistance, reactance, wire length and matching) and shortly after QSO I dumped Inverted Vee and 41m longwire leaving delta loop rady for another test. Instead of those two I hung rather weird size longwire of 27 meters. In theory input impedance of such a length on HF is around few hunred ohms which is reasonably low for typical antenna tuners. Using single but good ground wire I started to make another comparison test. This resulted with good news that 27 meter long wire is as good as 41 meter long wire even on 80 meter band. This was great, because very few locations on holidays are good for more than a single wire antennae like dipole or Inverted Vee. Until the end of my August holidays I used 27m longwire along with 14MHz vertical delta loop fed in a bottom top via 75ohm piece of 0,66 lambda cable.

August 2005 setup

Typical SSB radios - old but very good Yaesu FT-707S ( QRP version) and Taurus-80. The biggest "box" is an AT-200 Kenwood handy antenna tuner

WYSZOWATE - discovered beautiful location on Mazury Lakes

Unfortunately there was no chance to go to Giby or Kukle again on September, so after couple of hours internet search I found new place to go for early autumn holidays. By the small lake in a good standard of the facilities and being hosted by the owner of the small but very elegant guesthouse I spent comfortable two weeks along with my daughter. None of the mushrooms collected, very few fishes caught but we had a lot of excursions and "doing nothing" days. For this part of my holiday I decided not to fill my car with a ham radio equipment except Taurus-80 and my lovely K-1. Small power supply, MFJ antenna tuner, long wire of 21m and some necessary wires, plugs and tools could find a room in a small tourist pack. Not many QSOs I made overall on 80m SSB except two local contest which made crazy some of my LP and QRO colleagues. Taurus-80 with around 3,5W of output power + LW27 produced readable signals but close locations to Kaliningrad and Lithuania made contacts difficult when the band opened on evenings. K-1 gave around 50 QSOs mainly on 30m and 40m. Propagation was very poor on higher bands. Long wire worked well and built in ATU matched K-1 very easy. Once again I hade a very good example  then in fact such a primitive antenna like 27 meter longwire is very convenient and effective for QRP on 80 meters and up.

View from my window

Clean water, unexpected summer weather and good menu

made our stay very impressive

                                Simple to find - just call

                                                or

                    http://www.kasia.e-mazury.com.pl/

                                Wyszowate - setup

                 Taurus - 80, MFJ-atu and Elecraft K-1 with atu built-in

                          Red piece of wire is a beginning of LW 27m.

Fog in the morning

First couple of days of my stay

were painted in hazy view of 27 meter longwire

which was supported by telescopic aluminium mast

and nearest available tree